


Pistanthrophobia

by talesoffangirl



Series: Gamophobia [1]
Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, It's mostly fluff I promise, M/M, Soulmate AU, a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 10:25:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7711429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talesoffangirl/pseuds/talesoffangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life would be so much easier if it worked in the same way fairy tales did. If seeing the world without color meant the search was still on. If drawings and lettering magically appeared along arms and legs and only one other person had markings to match. If timers were strapped around their wrists and counted down to the exact moment when it finally happened. In reality, finding a soulmate was a guessing game, and in Luke’s opinion, a twisted one.</p>
<p>____<br/>In which Luke plans his entire future around his biggest fear, the universe decides to ruin everything, and Asch is really, really not helping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pistanthrophobia

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my best friend and soulmate Dakota, who stayed up with me until 2AM while I wrote this and then until 3AM while I edited. You're the absolute best and I love you.

Ever since he’d started high school, the word ‘soulmate’ had always sent shivers down Luke’s spine. The thought of it was nerve wrecking; to think that there was one person on the entire planet he was destined to be with, that his path to supposed true happiness lay in the hands of someone who might not even know he existed. And there was no telling when – or even _if_ – he would ever find them.

Life would be so much easier if it worked in the same way fairy tales did. If seeing the world without color meant the search was still on. If drawings and lettering magically appeared along arms and legs and only one other person had markings to match. If timers were strapped around their wrists and counted down to the exact moment when it finally happened. In reality, finding a soulmate was a guessing game, and in Luke’s opinion, a twisted one.

He remembered when Guy had thought he’d found his soulmate, in a boy whose eyes held all the stars in the night sky according to him. They’d lasted almost three years. Just after the two year mark, Guy had gone to get his tattoo: a trail of shining silver stars that traced along his collarbone. Six months later and Guy had found his supposed soulmate in bed with some girl. They’d broken up the next day, broke all ties and connections by the end of the week, and Guy was back to square one; soulmate-less and heavily burdened within the span of one hundred and sixty eight hours, which wasn’t nearly as long as it sounded.

Even though that had been years ago, and Guy was better now, Luke still caught his best friend reaching up to touch the ink that permanently marked his skin. Once, when Guy had noticed him watching him, he’d smiled weakly and said, “Whatever you do, make sure you’re absolutely certain you can live with the reminder of someone on your body. What I wouldn’t give to scratch mine off.”

The warning only jostled his nerves further. Guy was such an amazing person who anyone would be lucky to have; if he hadn’t found his soulmate, had lost the game of chance, how would Luke ever manage it? How the hell was he supposed to know the difference between lust and love if he still struggled with remembering all the equations for his Calculus tests?

_I’ll just never find a soulmate,_ Luke had decided one day, junior year of high school, after having witnessed a small group of friends showing off their tattoos. _I’ll never be with anyone and I’ll never make that mistake. I don’t need a soulmate._ Yeah, soulmates were overrated. He’d just stick with Guy and his other soulmate-less friends, and he’d be just fine. It was a perfect, fool-proof plan that Luke was more than happy to follow.

Until the day everything went wrong. Until the day he met Asch. Until the day he realized that, to him, Asch’s emerald green eyes held every single Lorelei-forsaken star in the stupid sky and Luke knew he was screwed. He was so, so screwed.

~:~

Asch already had a tattoo; an arrow, etched along his inner left forearm, shooting down towards his wrist. It was surprisingly simple as far as soulmate tattoos went. There was no intricate detail or mesmerizing pattern, just the line art of the arrow decorating his skin. The first time he saw it, Luke had thought it might have been _too_ plain, but he’d come to realize that Asch was a man of simple tastes despite coming from a wealthy family.

Luke didn’t know how long you had to be with someone before asking about a previous ‘soulmate’ wouldn’t be considered weird or awkward. So it wasn’t really brought up until further into their relationship, just shy of the six month mark. By that point, the two of them had done just about everything a couple could do together without taking their clothes off – he had taken the plunge with Asch in a lot of ways, had broken all the rules his past self had so carefully set in place because being with Asch was so thrilling and exciting, but _that_ was something he was adamant on saving until the time was right.  

“Who were they?” Luke asked, one day when they were lying together on the couch in Asch’s apartment. He was curled up on his side, tucked against Asch’s chest with his head tilted down to see the other’s arm where it rested at his side. His arm was outstretched and the tip of his index finger touched gently along the inked flesh, tracing the shaft of the arrow down to the tip of the arrowhead. He could feel the light pulse hiding in Asch’s wrist.

“Her name was Natalia,” Asch answered. He lifted his arm, resting his elbow on the couch cushion to give Luke a better view. Luke let his finger follow the movement. His hand ended up resting on the older redhead’s stomach, but his gaze stayed trained on the tattoo.

“How long?” How long had Asch been with this Natalia girl? How long ago had he gotten the tattoo? How long had it been since they’d broken up? Luke wasn’t sure which to ask first, or which Asch would be willing to answer. Asch seemed to understand his internal dilemma, though, because he responded easily enough.

“We’ve known each other since we were kids. We grew up together, but nothing happened between us until we were both older. I was…” Asch exhaled thoughtfully, “…seventeen when it happened.”

Luke hummed. Asch was twenty now, the same age as him. “That was only three years ago.”

“We were together for two.” Luke felt Asch’s head shift as he turned to stare down at the tattoo himself. “We got our tattoos early, sometime within the first year. Young and dumb, you know? As if a pinkie swear that we would stay together was proof enough. She told me she’d always believed I was her soulmate, and I… I guess I was just so in love with her at the time that I convinced myself of it too.”

The part of Luke that was still stuck in the past, that still waited anxiously for the day Asch would leave and he would be alone again, twisted. “’At the time’?” He gazed up at his boyfriend, who had shifted from staring at his tattoo to staring at a spot on the ceiling.

“Yeah. At the time,” Asch repeated quietly. “I don’t really know how it happened, I just…fell out of love with her. It didn’t feel the same anymore.” The redhead’s chest rose and fell slowly as he sighed. “I still remember the day I told her she wasn’t my soulmate. She started crying and I felt like a jackass. I didn’t think she’d ever talk to me again.”

Luke blinked at the phrasing, rewinding it in his mind a few times. “You mean, she did? You two…still see each other?” He was so used to referring to Guy’s story when it came to soulmates, was so used to hearing about false love and betrayal and regret that an ending that didn’t involve any of those things never really occurred to him.

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Asch used the tone he always spoke in when he thought Luke was endearingly being an idiot. “Natalia was my best friend before she was ever my girlfriend. All those years spent together don’t just disappear because we made a wrong call. It took a while for us to get past it, sure, but we did.”

Luke sat up. “So, you don’t regret getting the tattoo?”

“Why would I?” Asch sat up as well, meeting Luke’s eyes. He was as calm and collected as he always was – Luke didn’t know how he did that. “Maybe the meaning behind it has changed, but it still means something. Natalia means something to me, even if it’s not romantically. And isn’t that what the tattoos are supposed to symbolize?” Luke didn’t know what to say to that. “She _is_ my soulmate, but in a friend way. So no, I don’t regret the tattoo.”

Luke thought about Guy and decided he knew exactly what Asch was getting at, because if soulmates were based off of friendship then there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Guy would be his soulmate.

“My best friend got cheated on by the person he thought was his soulmate,” he blurted out. “He hates that he has a permanent reminder on his body of what that bastard did to him.” The information didn’t faze his boyfriend. If anything, it flicked the light on behind his star-filled emerald eyes.

“You told me you didn’t have a tattoo,” Asch pointed out. “Is that why?” Luke nodded. His lips stayed pressed together; he didn’t know how to convey his fear to the other the right way, because yes, he was afraid, but Asch was worth more than some stupid fear, and Luke didn’t regret anything he’d taken from or given him. “I don’t plan on hurting you, Luke.”

Luke smiled wearily. “I wish I could say I believed you.” Guy had believed, too. Fat lot of good that had done him.

“You don’t have to. Let me prove it to you.”

Luke looked at his boyfriend and took him in. Took in the sharp angles to his face and the way disobedient strands of his crimson hair fell over his forehead. Noted how his pale skin glowed like soft moonlight and tried to count the stars in his eyes only to realize there were far too many. Asch was an angel, _his angel_ , and as Luke thought that, he also thought that maybe his statement about not believing him wasn’t quite as true as he first thought.

“Okay,” he said softly, and closed his eyes. Asch’s fingers were spots of warmth where they touched his cheeks, and when he kissed him, Luke’s whole body lit up with something. Something greater than fear and stronger than happiness.

If that wasn’t love, then Luke wasn’t sure what was.

~:~

The day after his and Asch’s seven-month anniversary, Luke picked up his phone and made the call. A week after that, his ‘boycott soulmates’ plan officially fell through: ruined forever with no going back. It was thrilling yet terrifying, watching it crumble to pieces before him; but once it was done, Luke couldn’t help but think that he understood Guy’s mistake a little bit better, and that maybe it hadn’t been much of a mistake at all.

He got his tattoo on his hip. In dark red ink, a crescent moon shone against his fair skin, with arcs of dots hanging from it like curtains. The moon was placed in a sea of little stars that decorated his flesh in a diamond pattern – a little tribute to Guy, his platonic soulmate, and if this turned out to be a mistake then they could both shoulder their burdens together. He remembered taking the paper off for the first time, remembered standing in his bathroom and staring into the mirror with eyes wide and pants tugged down his thighs as he watched the perfect design come into view. It was gorgeous. Almost as gorgeous as the guy he believed was his soulmate.

Luke didn’t say a word to Asch about it. He didn’t know how. Sitting his boyfriend down and saying _I just wanted to let you know that I got a tattoo for you because I think you’re my soulmate even though we’ve only been together for like half a year haha whoops_ wasn’t a very appealing idea to him. He wouldn’t want Asch to tell him that way, so he wouldn’t do it himself. But there was no other way he could picture the conversation going. So he stayed quiet about it, and went about his life with his maybe-soulmate by his side and the tattoo along for the ride.

Four months later and the tattoo was still there, just as gorgeous and perfect on his hip as it had been when he’d first gotten it. It had become familiar: to undress for a shower and see shiny red winking at him from his hip, to run his fingers over the edges and feel how perfectly they melded into his skin, to feel the ink burn with desire whenever Asch’s arm was around him and his hand rested that little bit too close. Four months later, one month after the end of their first year together, and Luke decided he was ready.

He didn’t say anything since he was so shit about talking to his boyfriend about things – which wasn’t the biggest problem Luke had to deal with, considering Asch normally figured those things out on his own and by that point Luke only had to confirm – but one night, lying in Asch’s bed with their legs tangled together and Asch’s lips on his and his fingers curled in Asch’s hair, Luke didn’t call out a stop. And when Asch realized this and pulled back, looming over Luke, all blood red hair and flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes and asked if he was okay, Luke nodded carefully and murmured, “I’m ready.”

Asch had told him back when they had their first real talk about sex that Natalia had been his first. So he’d known the other redhead would have some experience under his belt – Luke was the first guy he’d ever been with – but _damn_. Asch’s lips were warm against his and his tongue was hot and wet on his neck and his touch was gentle when he gripped Luke by the hips and the tattoo _burned_ and Luke moaned.

He felt the warmth of fingers against his stomach as Asch’s hands slid under his shirt, and it was nothing new after months of back scratches and belly rubs but now it was different. Asch moved with a purpose, spreading the warmth, carefully toeing the line in the sand to see what would and wouldn’t make Luke feel good. The pads of his fingertips brushed over his nipples and Luke squirmed and then Asch’s mouth was at his ear whispering, “Can I?” And Luke was nodding because _yes of course you can please_ and Asch tugged at his arms until he sat himself up, and together they dragged Luke’s shirt over his head.

In that moment it really hit him, because Asch touching him wasn’t new but him being shirtless sure was, and Luke felt the anxiety start to creep up on him. But when Asch’s arms wrapped back around him and wet heat placed itself upon his shoulder, the redhead let himself relax because Asch was soft and warm and _safe_.

Asch kissed him all over, lips feather-light as they wandered along his skin, tongue carving trails of wet heat along the dips of his muscles and around his nipples. Strands of his gorgeously red hair dripped down from his shoulders and tickled Luke’s chest, and he raised his hands to tangle his own fingers into the dark ruby mass. Asch’s hair felt like silk and his mouth felt like heaven as he caught one of Luke’s nipples between his lips and lavished it with attention. Luke pressed himself into the mattress but his spine still curved, slotting his stomach against his boyfriend’s perfectly. Asch growled in appreciation and his hands shifted back down to hold his hips, thumbs sneaking just below the waistband of Luke’s pants, touching the bare skin hiding beneath.

The tattoo flared. Asch was busying himself with dragging Luke’s pants off and Luke’s eyes widened because _damn it all he was an idiot._

“W-W-Wait…!” Luke gasped out, wiggling his hips desperately. The action was unnecessary; Asch released him immediately, moving his hands to either side of Luke’s head to hold his body up.

“What?” Asch asked, breathless. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

His heart was in his throat, pumping blood at lightning speed and making him feel sick. He was such an idiot. He’d thought he was ready but he wasn’t, wasn’t ready to say it, wasn’t ready for Asch to know. _This wasn’t how he was supposed to find out._ Wasn’t something like this supposed to be romantic and well-thought out? That was how all the stories went. That was what Asch deserved. He couldn’t show him, couldn’t let him see, couldn’t–!

“Luke?”

_Tell him._

“I have to tell you something.”

_Stop being afraid._

“’Tell me something’?” Asch echoed. “Can’t it wait until after we’ve finished up here?”

_Believe him._

“It’s important, Asch. I need to tell you now.”

“Now? Luke, if you didn’t want to do this, you should’ve stopped me sooner–“

“I got a tattoo.” The words tumbled out of his mouth in a rush. Luke didn’t know how the other could understand the sentence; it barely made sense to his own ears. But before he could repeat himself for clarity, he saw Asch’s eyes widen and realized he’d understood just fine.

His boyfriend reached down to hold one of his hands. “When?”

_Is it mine_?

“A few months ago.”

_Yes, it’s yours._

“Can I see it?” Luke nodded and motioned for him to let him up. As they both found their way into sitting positions, Luke’s hand went to the band of his pants and he swallowed thickly. His fingers trapped the fabric between them. He pulled, baring his hip the way he had to himself so many times in the bathroom mirror. Luke watched Asch’s face as his emerald eyes locked onto the red that stained his flesh. For almost a full minute, Asch just stared, transfixed on the design covering his hip. Then his gaze flicked upwards and met Luke’s. He didn’t say anything, so Luke did.

“I love you.” His voice was a whisper. “I love you and I think you’re my soulmate.”

Asch’s eyes were constant, his face blank, watching Luke as he squirmed underneath the stare like a bug beneath a microscope. Luke’s heart was pounding so hard it was starting to make his head hurt. _This is wrong I was wrong this was a mistake oh Lorelei he doesn’t feel the same what have I done what have I done._

The corners of Asch’s mouth twitched. They went up on either side, stretching further and further until his boyfriend was smiling so wide and bright and that smile dispelled everything negative Luke was feeling.

“You damn idiot.” There was the tone again. Luke watched with owl eyes as the other redhead pulled his black shirt over his head and turned, showing his bare back. Asch reached behind himself and gathered his long hair up in one hand. Luke couldn’t contain his gasp of surprise.

Depicted along the back of Asch’s shoulder was a bird, its wings spread wide in flight as it soared across his skin. It was inked in dark blue.

A soulmate tattoo.

Luke’s mouth was still hanging open when Asch turned back around. His boyfriend chuckled, and he blushed knowing it was at his expense.

“When… When did you–?”

“A few months ago,” he quoted.

_Mine is yours, too._

Luke didn’t know what to do or say next, so he went with the first thing he thought of; he dove into his boyfriend’s arms and curled up against his chest, pressing his face into Asch’s shoulder. He loved him. He loved him so much it was terrifying, but not even the memory of how much Guy had loved only to be hurt in return could make him deny that fact any longer. He wished he would’ve told Asch sooner.

“I’m your first tattoo.” Luke hummed in confirmation. He might not have been Asch’s first tattoo, but that was okay, because he was something. “So you can live with a reminder of me on your body? Forever?”

The younger redhead smiled and scattered kisses across his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Yeah, I think I can. I will.” He let his mouth make its way over to Asch’s neck, where he placed more kisses. “Can you live with a reminder of me on your body?” Asch inhaled deeply, and released it as a pleased sigh.

“Definitely. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

~:~

They picked up where they left off, and it was perfect. Luke didn’t really have anything to compare it to, but he was confident that it couldn’t have been better – Asch would later prove him wrong, but for now, he was content to lie in his boyfriend’s arms and bask in the afterglow of the best night of his life. His arms were around Asch in turn, fingers idly tracing paths along his back, and he smiled whenever he heard the older redhead’s breath catch in his throat, a sign that Luke’s touch was drifting near the tattoo behind his shoulder.

“Asch?” Luke asked quietly. “Why a bird?”

“Because you have similar brain sizes.” Luke twisted two fingers into the other’s long hair and pulled. Asch pinched his side sharply in retaliation – which was by no means fair at all, considering Asch had pinched a lot harder than he’d pulled. He tipped his head back and glared upwards, but his boyfriend only stared back with a raised eyebrow. Luke had gotten so caught up in how perfect everything was that he’d apparently forgotten how much of a stubborn ass Asch could be.

“Why a bird?” he repeated.

“Because,” Asch finally said after dragging the silence on for a few moments longer, “you’re freeing.”

Luke blinked. “Huh?”

“You’re freeing. You make me feel free. I always felt like I was chained down to something or other and then you came along and now I don’t feel that way anymore.” A smile spread across Luke’s face.

“Really?”

“Partly. The brain size thing was a legitimate answer.”

He snorted. “You’re just trying to cover up your sappy answer.”

“Am I?” Asch’s hand slipped down to Luke’s still bare hip, brushing his fingers over the marking there. The sensation made Luke shudder. “Then why a moon?”

Luke looked up at him. At the boy who had waltzed into his life by chance and somehow managed to tear apart everything he’d ever known and believed in and taken away all his fears and taught him how to love. At the boy who had to be the literal, actual embodiment of the night sky with his starry eyes and glowing skin. At the boy who would now and forever be known as his first soulmate, whose identity would forever be tattooed to his skin. And Luke couldn’t have asked for a better protagonist to write into his story.

Why a moon?

_Because ever since I first saw you I always thought you glowed brighter than the moon and that your eyes held every single star in the universe, and I thought that was a bad thing but then I realized it’s not and I never want to forget that._

“Because you’ll always be here.”

Which pretty much meant the same thing.

**Author's Note:**

> A complete masterpost explaining this AU can be found [here](http://talesoffangirl.tumblr.com/post/157506059210/soulmate-au-masterpost)


End file.
